Chapter 3 Christine #3
It’s an old song from the ’70s, one my mother loved.
“Dream Weaver,” by Gary Wright. I give it a different cadence, a modern sound.
My voice glides through the notes, mysterious and languid, ghostly and smooth.
In my mind, I hear the delicate accompaniment of a piano, a complement to the first few wistful bars, and then the crash of drums and the crest of passionate strings as I let myself go.
I pour everything I have into the lyrics, sucking in quick, desperate breaths between phrases, flooding the empty air with the brilliant violence of the song.
It’s a disconsolate wish, a dream of heaven from an angel in hell.
I feel the tension rushing out of my body, the purging force of music easing the ache in my heart.
As the song climbs, so do I. I reach the second-floor landing and pause, listening to the notes soar into the darkness.
Few people have heard me sing, and I’ve never had lessons.
But I’ve lived in Nashville all my life, moving in musical circles with my parents, and I know, objectively, that my voice is good.
In mere seconds, I can go from the smoky, sultry tones of a lounge singer to the pure, delicate notes of a light-lyric soprano.
Every note feels incredibly intimate, like my soul is a dandelion that I’m plucking seed by seed, blowing the fragile fluff from my palm into the cruel maw of the universe.
Being perceived so fully is more than I can stand, and yet I don’t know how to sing any other way.
That’s why I can only sing when I’m alone.
I haven’t auditioned for anything, not even as a backup dancer, since my parents were killed. Since they volunteered to fight for Wolfsheim. Since they surrendered themselves to the will of a monster.
I wonder if they were afraid when they died. I wonder if death hurt, if it surprised them, or if they slid gently into the reaper’s arms.
Clutching the railing, I begin a new song, Blue ?yster Cult’s “(Don’t Fear) The Reaper.” It’s a wandering dirge, a mourning plea, a sacrifice to the echoing darkness.
And from the depths of the shadowed staircase, a voice materializes—a faint, elusive harmony threading with my song.
I stop singing, a ragged gasp in my throat.
Someone is here. Someone’s listening.
My first instinct is to run. Not because I’m afraid of physical harm but because this was supposed to be my secret place, my haven, and the idea of someone else being here is abhorrent. Will I lose this, too, along with everything else? Am I to have nothing for myself?
My jaw clenches, and I hold my ground. Waiting.
But I can’t hear anyone. Not a footstep, not a breath. Not a sound except the sizzle of an ancient, dust-covered light bulb.
I must have imagined that harmony.
Tentatively, I continue the chorus, listening with all my might, sliding through the phrases, crooning, “Come on, baby…” like I’m tempting the singer to reveal himself, if he exists.
The voice joins me again, clear and masculine, blending seamlessly with the melody, matching my pitch and tone to perfection.
I almost stop singing again, but the voice is so lovely that I can’t help myself.
I want to hear what he’ll do next, how he’ll complement the notes.
It’s genius, really, the way he harmonizes—finding unexpected depths and heights to enrich our strange duet.
At one point, he hits a note that seems fucking impossible for any human male, even the best countertenors.
The second I end the last phrase, I run down the stairs, all the way to the bottom, to that double-locked door.
No one is there. I run back up, breathless, my skin stippled with chills despite the effort of climbing the stairs.
Floor by floor I search, yanking open any door that isn’t locked, peering down gloomy hallways.
Finally I return to the second-floor landing, sweaty, panting, and frustrated.
No sign of anyone anywhere. If there was someone in this stairway playing a joke on me, he must have run off while I was hunting for him.
Which disappoints me a little, because even if he was a weirdo prankster, he had an incredible voice.
As I step to the railing again, a faint male chuckle echoes through the air. I gasp a little, fingers tight around the railing.
So he’s not gone.
The voice that accompanied me was ethereal, disembodied. Ghostly, or…angelic. I can’t help thinking of my last conversation with my father—how he promised to send someone to me from the Afterworld.
But it’s been well over a year. Surely if such a place exists, and if communication was possible, Dad would have sent me a message sooner than this.
Besides, I don’t believe in ghosts or angels.
Or at least I don’t believe in them when I’m spinning on an office chair behind the front desk, poking at the useless paper clips in the little dish beside the pen holder.
Disbelief is easy then. Not so easy when I’m standing on a darkened concrete landing with cool air wafting past my cheeks and the echoes of an ethereal voice stirring my mind.
And then there’s the tiny fact that I’ve lived among supernatural beings all my life. I know things that most people don’t.
“Who are you?” I say aloud.
The question shivers in the air, taut and invisible.
No answer.
“Are you…a ghost?” I venture. “Some kind of phantom? Or…an angel?” God, I sound ridiculous.
“Angel?” The voice laughs again, a deep, hollow sound this time. Impossible to pinpoint its source. It seems to emanate from everywhere and nowhere.
“Did my father send you to help me?”
“Your father,” the voice murmurs. “He is dead. You were singing for him.”
“No,” I say quickly, bitterly. “Not for him or for my mother. They made choices, and they suffered the consequences. They sacrificed everything for an eternal future, and they lost it all.”
“And you…” The voice swirls around me, distant and soothing. “What future do you desire? You sing well. Not without flaws, but I hear so much potential. If you would only let yourself truly sing.”
I’m on the verge of a fuck you, but he’s right. I was holding back just now. And I could probably use some pointers on technique—breath support, phrasing, lyricism, all that crap.
“I do need a teacher. I want to improve, but I don’t have the confidence to sing in front of anyone.”
“Confidence comes through mastery.” The way he speaks is old-fashioned, elegant, precise, and despite the undeniable sexiness of his voice, there’s a wraithlike quality to it that sends chills over my skin.
“I can’t afford singing lessons,” I tell him. “I can barely find time to keep up with my dancing.”
“Ah, you’re a dancer. Of course you are. With a voice like that, your body must obey the call of the music.”
“I guess so.” I never really thought about it like that, but it’s true.
For me, music and movement are intimately connected.
When I’m listening to a song I love, I can barely hold myself still.
I feel as if I want to accentuate the melody with my limbs, illustrate every phrase with the lines of my body.
“Tell me your name,” he says.
“Christine.”
“Christine.” The consonants bounce crisply from surface to surface throughout the stairway. He whispers it then, intimately soft, an echoing hiss. “Christine.”
A tremor, half terror and half delight, runs through my body.
“Come back tomorrow around this time,” he says. “You’ll sing for me again, and I’ll teach you how to master your voice.” There’s a faint clang, like a metal door closing. I think it came from somewhere overhead, but it’s impossible to be sure.
“What’s your name?” I call into the darkness. And then, because I can’t help myself— “Are my parents all right in the Afterworld? Are they happy?”
My voice drops as I ask the last question.
No need to shout—I suspect he isn’t there any longer.
I’m not sure a ghost or an angel would know the answer, or that I’d want to hear it even if he could tell me about my parents’ current state of existence.
But the question plays in my head anyway, over and over, with a bitter addition of my own.
Are they happy? Because they don’t deserve to be.